September, 2017, Part 1,Political CLass Insanity: Wasted Dollars In NYC, Wasted Words From the UN, and Wasted Lives From Baltimore

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.

1) As we have often documented, political class insanity and government bungling can happen at any level of government. Let’s kick off today’s insanity with some bungling from New York City, as documented in the Washington Free Beacon by Jack Heretik on August 28, 2017:

• The NYC Police Department will have to replace 36,000 current cell phones it has in use with brand new iPhones by the end of the year even though the current 36,000 phones are less than two years old.
• Apparently these 36,000 phones are already obsolete when purchased new since they are based on a Microsoft operating system that Microsoft has already announced it will stop operational support for.
• Rather than purchasing tens of thousands of phones using the popular iPhone or Android operating systems, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Information Technology Jessica Tisch is being blamed for the purchase of phones using a very unpopular operating system that is now being discontinued, something that she likely should have investigated with Microsoft prior to okaying the purchase.
• "The NYPD's decision to go with Microsoft's mobile operating system seems to confound more than a few, since Windows Phone's 2.3 percent U.S. market share is anemic when compared to Android's 65.2 percent and iOS's 30.9 percent," read an article published on the tech news site Digital Trends in October.

Millions of dollars wasted by another government screw up with no redeeming societal benefits.

2) The United Nations it probably the epitome of failed government and political and central planning and execution since it has been an almost totally useless when it comes to making the world a better, safer place to live:

• For almost 70 years it has failed to bring peace to the Middle East.
• It has failed to control the spread of nuclear weapons.
• It has failed to prevent wholesale slaughters of whole groups of people from Bosnia to various parts of Africa.
• It has failed to advance the rights of women in countries that treat women as accessories or second class citizens.
• It has failed to even speak out against the whole religious slaughter, genocide and enslavement being carried out over the years by terror groups like ISIS.
• It’s so-called “peacekeeping” functions have usually been failures in so many different ways.
• It has failed to advance the rights of freedom around the world with the majority of the world’s citizens living under totalitarian regimes, from Cuba to China to Russia
• There are probably dozens of other instances of UN failures but you get the idea: this political governmental organization is pretty useless and pretty expensive.

So, rather than try to change this dismal record and work on some big issues that might actually make a difference for mankind, what is a UN organization currently working on, according to Martin Walsh, writing for the Conservative Tribune on August 24, 2017:

• A UN committee combating racism has issued an “early warning” to the United States about the growth in “alarming racism” in this country.
• Anastasia Crickley, who is the chairwoman of U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), issued a statement relative to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12: “We are alarmed by the racist demonstrations, with overtly racist slogans, chants and salutes by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan, promoting white supremacy and inciting racial discrimination and hatred.” 
• This type of warning is rare, according to the article, and has only been issued a few times in the past decade as it relates to countries like Burundi, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria.
• Crickley went on to lecture Americans: “In a decision issued under its ‘early warning and urgent action’ procedure, the Committee, which monitors implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, stated ‘there should be no place in the world for racist white supremacist ideas or any similar ideologies that reject the core human rights principles of human dignity and equality. In addition to the criminal investigation of the individual who ploughed his car into a crowd of peaceful protesters killing a woman, the UN experts asked the US authorities to undertake concrete measures “to address the root causes of the proliferation of such racist manifestations.”
• Seriously, while the actions and death in Virginia was tragic, this idiot in the UN has the nerve to denounce all Americans while she and the UN ignore the genocide and enslavement of Christians and other minorities throughout the MIddle East? 
• She lectures us while women in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc. have virtually no human rights? 
• She comes down on us when the U.S. is one of the least racist nations in the world, according to real data as summarized in an article by Kyle Becker in the Independent Journal Review, data which found that the U.S. did not even crack the top 25 countries from a racism perspective, as measured by the World Values Study (blue means least racist, red means most racist):

Oh, by the way Ms. Crickley, did you know that the U.S. twice elected a black man to be President, a reality that very few countries around the world can claim? Typical politician, working hard on a minor or fake issue because they are clueless on how to resolve the major issues.

3) One of the main, and possibly only roles of government in a democracy should be to protect its citizens. If it cannot even do that than what good is that level of government and the politicians that operate it? No clearer example if this type of failure has arisen than in the city government of Baltimore, as reported by James Barrett on August 24, 2017 for the Daily Wire website:

• Baltimore’s murder rate has gone up 50% in just the past six years.
• The city now averages over 300 murders a year, up from about 200 six years ago.
• Given this carnage, one would hope that Baltimore politicians would be working diligently to reduce that rate as a prime function of its existence.
• But hope is never a good thing when relating to a politician or government bureaucrat since in a recent Baltimore Sun article, state attorney Marilyn Mosby and Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, admitted that the skyrocketing murder rate, “was directly linked to disavowing the more stringent policing policies of the past.”
• And both agreed that not only were these police policies more stringent, they were also more effective if “heavy handed.” 
• In the Sun interview both agreed that going against effective police tactics in the past has resulted in more murders but Mosby assured the residents of Baltimore that she and the Chief knew what they were doing: “People want to look for an overnight solution, but a lot of what has gotten us to this place didn’t happen overnight.”
• Despite the ever rising murder and crime rate in the city, Mosby somehow has convinced herself that, "At the end of the day, we’re making a lot of positive changes." 

\Thus, government bureaucrats in Baltimore are willing to sacrifice the lives of more and More Baltimore residents every day in order for some vague promises of better times sometimes down the road. Given that both have been in office for a number of years, years in which crime and murders rose dramatically in the city, I would not put a lot of faith in their prediction of better times, especially if they are still in charge.

Thus, we have another case of government, in this case the local government of Baltimore failing in its basic function, protecting the lives of those it rules over. Pathetic and tragic.

More insanity to follow in the coming days.

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

June, 2015, Bonus Post,Political Class Insanity: TSA Screws Up Again, Harry Reid's Memoery Problems, Obama Lack Of Planning Problems and More

Okay, I know I promised you that yesterday would be the last post in this month’s series on political class insanity but in just the past 24 hours, a whole new crop of insanity has popped up that cannot wait until next month. This will be the ninth, and final, post this month. But the nine posts in one month strictly on political class insanity does establish a new record for most insanity from our politicians in one month. Which obviously means are politicians and their inane actions are getting worse, not better, over time, a detriment to all Americans.

1) This month’s insanity has really come down hard on the TSA and their failure to protect the traveling public in so many ways. But it is well deserved scorn since the TSA is now looking like the most dysfunctional, useless Federal government in operation today.

The most damning insanity is that the TSA employees failed to identify 67 out of 70 fake weapons and bombs that were snuck through TSA security checkpoints as a test of their effectiveness. That is right, they only caught 3 out of 70, just over as 4% success rate. Additionally, other reports show that hundreds, if not thousands, of TSA security badges and uniforms have gone missing, badges and uniforms that could give terrorists access to private and secure areas in airports. 

But for the TSA, it just keeps better and better in a bad way. According to a recent inspector general report:

• At least 73 people who are linked to terrorism-related activity codes that are employed by the Federal government, somehow made it past the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening processes without being flagged and were at sometime employed throughout the U.S airline industry.
• These terrorist-identified people worked for airlines, airport vendors and other airport-related employers, and they all made it through TSA's security clearance even though they were on terror watch lists, according to the inspector general report: "TSA did not identify these individuals through its vetting operations because it is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related categories under current interagency watchlisting policy." 
• In addition, TSA let the airlines and airports where these people were employed do their own background checks. 
• According to the report’s findings, TSA "risks credentialing and providing unescorted access to secure airport areas for workers with potential to harm the nation’s air transportation system." 

The inability to identify bombs and weapons. The inability to keep track of security badges and uniforms. And now the inability to prevent six dozen people currently on terror watch lists from getting jobs at airports. As always, you cannot make this stuff up when it comes to government incompetence.

2) For six years, Democrat Harry Reid was the Senate Majority Leader. He was supposed to “lead” the Senate it is legislating and budgeting activities. In the first two years of that six year term, his job was made a lot easier because the Democrats also controlled the House. In all six years his job was made easier because there was a Democrat in the White House.

Despite having political allies in important positions throughout the Federal government, in six years Harry Reid and the Senate he led failed to produce a single budget that had any thought behind it. He and his other Congressional friends simply continued to pass continuing spending resolution matters, never once sitting down and doing a real budget job. That failure probably has a lot do to with out of control government spending and an $18 TRILLION national debt, which almost half of which accrued during Reid’s time as the Senate Majority Leader.

Reid is no longer Senate Majority Leader, losing that post when the Republicans took control of the Senate in 2014. But that did not stop Harry from issuing the inane and stupid tweet relative to Senate budget work:


Senator Harry ReidVerified account‏@SenatorReid

Like ostriches with their heads buried deep in the sand, Senate Republicans continue to deny the need for a bipartisan budget.

In six years, Reid never produced ANY budget, never mind a bipartisan budget and now he thinks he can criticize the Republicans for doing the same? Really pathetic.

3) When ISIS, the most brutal and wealthiest terror organization of all time, started to make noise in the Middle East, President Obama called them the “JV” of terror groups. Later in 2014, when they started to gain steam and started taking control of broad swaths of land in Syria and Iraq, the President admitted that he and his security team did not have a strategy or plan to deal with the worst terror organization of all time.

And now, almost a year after admitting he had no strategy or plan for defeating ISIS, the President actually publicly admitted that he STILL had not strategy for defeating ISIS as reported by CNN: “We don’t yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitment on the part of the Iraqi’s”.

Additionally, Obama went on to say: “We want to get more Iraqi security forces trained, fresh, well equipped, and focused. We’re reviewing a range of plans for how we might do that, essentially accelerating the number of Iraqi forces that are properly trained and equipped and have a focused strategy and good leadership.”

He is “reviewing a range of plans”???? Still reviewing plans months and months after admitting he had no plans way back in last August? When will he have a plan, the day after he leaves office? One gets the feeling that he is now worried more about his legacy of withdrawing American troops from Iraq than doing the right thing to control the march of terrorism in Iraq and Syria.

The Republican National Committee issued a statement where they stated the obvious: “What has President Obama been doing for the last ten months?”

The Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, John McCain, also had some harsh words for the inaction of this administration: “While ISIS goes from house to house in Ramadi with lists of names and they execute people and they kill 3-year-old children, and they burn their bodies in the streets and the atrocities in Syria continue as Bashar Assad barrel bombs innocent men, women and children.”

I do not know what the right course of action is. But that is not my job, it is the President and his high priced security and military advisors that are supposed to come up with the plan that protects the best interests and lives of Americans. And ten months after admitting he had not strategy, Obama continues to still... not have a strategy.

4) Ineptness and insanity of politicians and government officials is not restricted to the Federal government. Consider this little bit incompetence from the Baltimore District Attorney, Marilyn Mosby. Ms. Mosby has accused six Baltimore police officers with various felonies for allowing a young black man to die while in their custody. His death resulted in widespread looting and rioting in the city.

Thus, given the high visibility of this case, you would think that the district attorney would double check everything she does, writes, says, etc. in order to protect the viability and integrity of her prosecution of the police officers. 

Unfortunately, she apparently did not get off to a good start. She wanted to put a gag order in place so that no one on either the defense side or the prosecutor side would be allowed to discuss the impending criminal case in public. Not an unknown strategy but unfortunately, Ms.Mosby filed the brief in the wrong court, filing it in the circuit court when it should have been filed in the district court. That’s right, a major city’s district attorney somehow did not know where to file a standard legal brief in her own city. 

That will do it for this month, no more insanity until early July. We learned to today that the TSA continues to add to its legend of incompetence, Harry Reid has a very short memory, at least when it comes to his own incompetence, we have a President who somehow cannot or will not fulfill his job responsibilities as commander in chief when it comes to mapping out an anti-terrorist strategy, and a Baltimore district attorney does not know her way around her own court system. Insane and pathetic on all counts.

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

June, 2015, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: A Circus In Baltimore, A Speaker of the House Gets Arrested, and Food Stamp Fraud

It is the start of another month which means it is time to review the latest political class insanity that the American political class has dropped on our heads in the past month or so. We do this review every month in order to continually prove our view that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of our country. Their inane quotes, their failed programs and laws, their wasteful spending, their ineptness, and continued focus on their own careers and self enrichment at the expense of taxpayers is constant and disgraceful.

This month could be one of the worst ever, given the backlog that needs to be discussed. The insanity will cover a full range of areas where today’s politicians continue to disappoint and fail us. As always, the new ways they find to screw up is never ending and always creative.

1) We already knew this but it is good to get some hard data to verify the reality that the Federal government routinely blows billions of dollars every year via is food assistance programs. A recent audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed that:

• The Federal government incorrectly gave out $7 billion to “ineligible recipients” of food assistance. 
• Part of the fraud problem is that the USDA has for years violated a requirement known as the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (IPERA), an act that requires government entities to conduct annual risk assessment of the operations of government programs that make “significant improper payments” of $10 million or more a year.
• The USDA has been in violation of that requirement for the past four years while also refusing to implement a more efficient identity verification program prior to authorizing payments.
• Two USDA programs account for the largest amount of the money that was wasted; food stamps, officially known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) together cost American taxpayers $16 billion in 2014. Of the almost $7 billion in fraudulent payments made by the USDA, those two programs accounted for $4.2 billion. 
• Thus, an obscene 25% of the total budget for just these two programs were wasted by criminal and bureaucratic fraud.
• A separate audit conducted by the investigative arm of Congress, also found that the USDA needs to improve its verification process for program access. 
• The Forensic Audits and Investigative Service director at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that both of USDA programs mentioned above have been designated as “high-error” by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since nearly HALF of the households that received benefits were not eligible because their income exceeded eligibility guidelines.

How many veterans could get the medical help they currently lack from the wasted $7 billion? How many homeless could be sheltered for that wasted $7 billion? How many drug addicts could receive treatment for that wasted $7 billion? Such a waste in so many ways, so much suffering because of political class and government incompetence.

2) I always have had faith the justice will always prevail, assuming you are around long enough to witness it. That faith was rewarded recently when former Speaker of The House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, was indicted by the Federal Justice Department. He is charged with trying to hide $3.5 million from the IRS and being dishonest with the FBI.

Now, this should come as no surprise, an American politician being crooked and dishonest. We have previously discussed the Congressman who took bribes and hid the bribe money in his freezer, the former New Orleans mayor who went to jail for kickbacks and shake downs, and the reality that any former Illinois governor is more likely to have served jail time than not. But it continues to be sad that our election processes are so bad and the people that we elect are so corrupt that it never seems to end when it comes to dishonest politicians.

A report from BuzzFeed detailed Hastert’s alleged illegal actions:

In an indictment handed down in the District Court of Northern Illinois, the Department of Justice and IRS charged Hastert, 73, with illegally transferring funds in an effort to avoid detection by the IRS, a scheme known as “structuring.”

In the indictment, Hastert is accused of agreeing to pay one individual $3.5 million.

Although the indictment does not specify the “bad acts,” sources said they could be from before Hastert, who is now a lobbyist in Washington, entered politics in 1980. The indictment does, however, claim that Hastert agreed to make the payments “[d]uring … 2010 meetings and subsequent discussions.” In at least one of those meetings, according to the indictment, Hastert and the individual “discussed past misconduct by [Hastert against the individual] that had occurred years earlier.”

The Washington Post elaborated on the accusations:

Beginning in 2013, the FBI and Internal Revenue Service began investigating “possible structuring of currency transactions to avoid the reporting requirements.” Hastert had made more than a dozen withdrawals of $50,000 in cash, which was provided to the unnamed individual every six weeks, the indictment said.

Each count in the indictment carries a potential penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago.

According to the indictment, Hasert was a school teacher and wrestling coach before he got into politics. Makes you wonder how he got so rich, dealing with millions and millions of dollars: was he just another corrupt politician or do wrestling coaches get paid really good money?

3) The Obama administration had probably the best chance to have a breakout recovery from the last recession:

• It spent over $800 billion to stimulate the economy.
• We are in the midst of a technology driven energy revolution that helped hold down energy costs while creating good paying jobs in the energy industry.
• The Fed printed up trillions of dollars and flooded the market with it as an economic stimulus.

Despite these incredible tailwinds, the Obama administration has presided over the worst, most tepid, lowest performing economic recovery in at least a century. Obama years’ annual GDP growth results have never been near or over the historic annual GDP growth of 3% or so, always falling well below that target growth rate.

And it appears it is not going to get any better soon. The first quarter GDP estimate for 2015 was recently downgraded from a very weak .2% growth to a .7% contraction. Thus, getting back even to the long term average of 3% is getting more and more difficult as long as the current politicians in the White House and Congress are running the show. The Washington Post agrees with this assessment: 

Americans are starting fewer businesses, new companies are going out of business more quickly, and the new firms that do get off the ground are creating fewer jobs. None of that bodes very well for an economy still trying to find its footing.

Still trying to find its footing five years after the recession ended. Might be time to finally admit that with the current economic policies in the Beltway, finding any footing is going to be a long way off.

4) Lifve and safety have been facing some difficult times in Baltimore lately. After the riots and destruction that were caused by the death of a young black man while in police custody, tensions have been high between the citizens, the mayor, the district attorney, and the police force in that city. Unfortunately, for whatever set of reasons, that tension has led to a new crime wave in that city.

Just in the month of May, 38 people have been killed by street violence, making it the deadliest month in the city for the past 15 years. And while violence and crime is up, police records are showing that fewer than half the number of arrests are being made when compared to the number of arrest in the same time period last year.

And yet, the district attorney of Baltimore is proving once again that it is not only Washington political figures that are clueless and insane when it comes to doing their jobs and having so-called “good optics.” As more and more citizens of Baltimore are being murdered, as more and more citizens fear for their lives, the city prosecutor recently announced via Twitter that she is going to serve as the guest ringmaster at a circus.

Yes, the streets of Baltimore are turning into the Old West and rather than focusing on bringing people together and finding a way to reduce the violence and unite the community, she is going to be a circus ringmaster. I say that again since it is so difficult to believe that this is her priority in this time of local city crises. A circus ringmaster.





Again, when it comes to politicians and government bureaucrats, at any level of government, “you can’t make this stuff up.” This ringmaster gig comes not too long she sat on stage during a Prince benefit concert in Baltimore, while still in the midst of the unrest in Baltimore. Unbelievable. 

But maybe not a surprise since we have a President who has played more than two hundred rounds of gold and attended over seven hundred fundraisers as the economy has limped along, the government has given out untold billions in bad welfare checks, the Middle East continues to implode, etc. There is money to be made and fun to be had if you are a member of the political class. Just ask Hasert, Mosby, and the thousands of others that are more concerned with their own self enrichment, financially and ego wise, than serving the citizens of this country.

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