July, 2017, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Obama Phone Fraud, Voting Fraud, and Other Fraud

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. The members of the political never cease to amaze us with their greed, idiocy, gumption, and criminal activities. And just when we think there is no new way to disappoint us and tick us off, they manage to find a way to do it, wasting our tax dollars and destroying our freedoms in the process.

The political class has been very busy this month so let’s get right to it:

1) Nowhere has the political class been such a failure than in Chicago where the local, county, state, and Federal politicians have failed repeatedly to provide a basic government service to the citizens of Chicago, namely bodily protection. Every day people are gunned down on the streets of Chicago resulting in the maiming and death of hundreds of people every year. V. Saxena, writing for the Conservative Tribune website on July 3, 2017, updated us on the latest violence in the city:

• 46 people were shot and at least four died died in Chicago on this July 4th weekend.
• The wounded included a 13 year old teeanger who was simply walking down the street.
• There have been over 1714 shootings this year in the city, almost 300 a month, about 10 shootings a day.
• And while the Trump administration is at least taking some action to fight the crime and violence wave, something that Obama never did for his home town, I doubt that sending an additional 20 ATF agents into the city is going to make any big difference.
• “I think Barack Obama has ignored the black community for eight years, and now he’s coming to take a bow in Chicago while our neighborhoods are suffering from disinvestment and soaring unemployment. We are seeing young black men getting gunned down at a horrific rate, and he has shown no willingness to seriously address these issues,” remarked Ja’Mal Green earlier this year, referencing the then-president’s farewell speech, as quoted by the Chicago Tribune.

What a mess, a fatal mess that the political class apparently has no plan to fix.

2) We have previously discussed the corrupt and wasteful Obama cell phone program (“Obama Phones”) that was supposed to place inexpensive cellular technology in the hands of poor people in our society and help them find jobs. But according to a recent study from the Government Accountability Office:

• One out of three people taking advantage of the program are not eligible for the program.
• A whopping 10.6 million people are in the program meaning over 3 million people are getting taxpayer wealth for nothing.
• The study also found that the program has resulted in $9 billion stuck in private bank accounts.
• Over 5,500 program participants have two phones, which is not kosher, and 6,400 people who are already dead also have phones in their names.
• And despite how big and expensive the program is, there is no plan in place to see if the program is actually meeting its intended objectives.

Wasteful spending on likely a useless program, sounds about right.

3) Will Brown, recently writing for the U.S. Chronicle website, explained how a corrupt state politician was recently sentenced to hard time in jail for her crimes in the state of Pennsylvania:

• Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane has been sentenced to 10-23 months in Federal prison for illegally disclosing details of a grand jury investigation in order to embarrass her political rival.
• She was also sentenced to 8 years probation after the term is served.
• The judge accused Kane of adopting an “off with your heads” mentality despite being the state’s top law enforcement officer in the state and also called Kane a political “neophyte” who never transitioned from politician to public servant after she got elected.
• And now the tattle tales have come out of the darkness about what a bad person Kane was, with Erik Olsen, former Chief Deputy Attorney General under Kane, claiming she created a “terror zone” in the office using “a pattern of systemic firings and Nixonian espionage.” Nice person.

It’s a shame that this type of corruption goes on everyday at every level of government but at least this corrupt official got her just rewards.

4) Let’s stay with political corruption. Scott Osborn, writing for the Joe For America website on July 3, 2017, told the sad story of a Hillary Clinton operative going to jail for breaking the law in the name of Clinton:

• Lead Hillary Clinton political community organizer Andrew J. Spieles, aged 21, pleaded guilty to registering multiple dead people to vote in the last Presidential election while working for Hillary.
• He could have been put in jail for up to a year as a result of an investigation of local police and the FBI but by pleading guilty he faces 100 to 120 days behind bars.
• The local TV station WTVR channel 6 reported: “A man paid to register Virginia voters prior to the 2016 Presidential Election will spend at least 100 days in prison for submitting the names of deceased individuals to the Registrar’s Office.”
• He got caught submitting voter registrations for dead people and one of those dead people was the father of a current Rockingham County judge.
• According to the government investigation: “Spieles later admitted that he prepared the false voter registration forms. He obtained the name, age, and address of individuals from ‘walk sheets’ provided to him by the Virginia Democratic Party, fabricating a birth date based on the ages listed in the walk sheet, and fabricating the social security numbers.” 

Again, this is another assault on our freedom and integrity of our democracy. Fortunately, he got caught. However, it makes you wonder if this type of behavior is going on and undetected around the country.

This is a good start to this month’s political class insanity: attorney general fraud, voting fraud, Obama Phone fraud, and still no political solution to the Chicago violence. More insanity to follow for days and days to come.

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

An Open Letter To Harry Reid: Congratulations On Your New Job, Senate MINORITY Leader

Senator Harry Reid:

Just wanted to wish you a happy holiday season and wish you luck in your new role as Minority Senate Leader in 2015. I found it interesting that you seem to have convinced yourself that the rollout of Obama Care was what changed your role from Majority Senate leader to Minority Senate leader this past November. According to recent reporting in the New York Times, you said: “We never recovered from the [Obama Care] rollout because the election became one that was directed toward the president. We couldn’t overcome that. I should have seen it coming.”

Unfortunately, Senator, I think you are missing the boat on this one. But before we explore my theory, let’s do some math:

• In the past eight years, a Democrat has been sitting in the White House for six of those eight years.
• In the past years, Democrats controlled the House Of Representatives for four out of those eight years.
• In the past eight years, Democrats controlled the Senate for every one of those eight years and you controlled the Democrats in the Senate for those eight years.
• Thus, for the past eight years, Democrats controlled one of these three government institutions 75% of the time.

Obviously the state of the country and the mood of its citizens owe a lot to the political party that controlled the Federal government for 75% of the time, especially considering that the same political party that controlled 100% of the Federal government for two years in a row. Obviously, that dominant political party was yours, the Democrats.

So back to the original theory. Do you really think that the botched rollout of Obama Care was the Democrats undoing and your relegation to Senate Minority leader? Maybe that was not the only reason. 

Maybe the fact that over 15 million Americans are still unemployed or underemployed had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that average household incomes have declined steadily over the past eight years, despite the recession ending years ago, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that minority unemployment rates are still sky high, despite five years of (weak) economic recovery, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the country has experienced the worst post recession recovery in the history of the nation had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government has dug itself an $18 TRILLION national debt hole had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government suffered its first ever credit downgrade had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that about six million Americans lost their current health insurance coverage as a result of Obama Care, a law that was passed entirely on the votes of Democrats, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that millions of Americans are now paying higher health insurance premiums and higher deductibles as a result of Obama Care, a law that was passed entirely on the votes of Democrats, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that Americans never saw that $2,500 annual reduction in their health insurance costs as a result of Obama Care, a law that was passed entirely on the votes of Democrats, as promised by the President had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Obama Care law, that was passed entirely on the votes of Democrats and was unconstitutionally changed almost two dozen times, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Obama Care law, that was passed entirely on the votes of Democrats, has resulted in millions of Americans working less hours or being forced into part time status had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that Jonathan Gruber, a major developer of the Obama Care legislation, a law that was passed entirely on the votes of Democrats, publicly spoke out on how he thought that Americans were too stupid to figure out how bad the law would be had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government spent well over $800 billion on an economic stimulus package, a package that accomplished very little for the vast majority of Americans or the economy, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that many, if not all, of the economic stimulus programs, e.g. Cash For Clunkers, Solyndra, dozens of other Democratic crony energy enterprises, were unmitigated disasters and wastes of taxpayer wealth had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government had record setting annual budget deficits for the past six years had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government left about two dozen Americans to fend for themselves when the terrorist Benghazi siege got underway, a siege that left four brave Americans dead, and then lied about the cause of the disaster, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the White House, members of Congress and the IRS conspired to deny First Amendment rights to groups and individuals who had contrary opinions on issues had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government is now spying on most electronic communications of most Americans, in a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government still wastes billions and billions of taxpayer dollars on idiotic government programs, projects, and grants had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government’s major programs, e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Obama Phones, welfare, are still infested and infected with waste, inefficiencies and outright criminal fraud, wasting hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth every year, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that Democrats in Congress have often called ordinary American citizens racists, Klan members, terrorists, and in one case, a California Congresswoman wished that some citizens would go to hell for simply have a difference of opinion on issues, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government really did not have a plan to deal with the Ebola outbreak when it hit our shores, despite having years, billions in funding, and a dedicated Center For Disease Control to be prepared, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government got the country illegally and unconstitutionally involved in the Libyan civil war, with the resultant Benghazi murders, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the Federal government dramatically underestimated the impact of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, resulting in the rise of one of the most horrific evil entities in history, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that six years into this current Presidency and public schools are still doing a terrible job educating our kids had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that six years into this current Presidency and we still do not have a national energy strategy and plan had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that six years into this current Presidency and we still have not secured our borders had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that veterans across the country are not getting the proper medical care that they were promised had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

Maybe the fact that since you became Senate Majority leader North Korea and Iran are eight years closer to becoming nuclear weapons players owners had something to do with the Democrats' election disaster.

Maybe the fact that the House of Representatives passed over three hundred pieces of legislation, many of which were sponsored by House Democrats or approved by House Democrats, that you refused to bring up for discussion, debate, or vote in the Senate, rendering this past session of Congress as one of the least productive in history, had something to do with the Democrats’ election disaster.

As you can see Senator Reid, there were a few more factors and drivers involved in the November election disaster results for Democrats beyond a botched rollout of a website. A website process, by the way, that did not work despite years of planning and almost a billion dollars of expense. 

The fact that you are so oblivious to the dozens of other factors that are so crystal clear to most Americans means you are 1) that far out of touch with reality or 2) you are in denial of how poorly you and the five hundred or so other Washington politicians have led this country over the past eight years. 

Enjoy your new life as Minority Senate Leader, you earned it.

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

December, 2013, Political Class Insanity, Part 6: Obama Phone Fraud, Great Recession Hangover, Drug Cartels Unchecked, and More

I had thought and hoped we could get all of the this month’s political class insanity into five posts. Silly me, as fast as I write the posts more lunacy from our politicians crops up. This will require one more day of insanity, anything else that comes up will be saved for early January.

1) One of the most popular items on many Christmas lists this year is a new cell phone. But they can be expensive, not only for the phone but also for the talk and data minutes that are paid every month. 

Unless, of course, you can rip off the Federal government and get a so-called Obama Phone, pay nothing for it, and abuse honest taxpaying Americans. The Heritage Foundation recently did a nice piece on their website that succinctly summarized the insult to working Americans that the Obama phone program has become:

• The Obama Phone/free cell phones for low-income Americans is one of the fastest growing welfare programs in the United States, all paid for by honest Americans via a monthly charge on their bills called the Universal Service Fund.
• Out of this fund, the Federal government pays Obama Phone companies $9.25 for every person connected through Lifeline. Each person gets a free phone and a certain amount of airtime.
• The cost of the program has nearly tripled in cost to taxpayers since Obama took office despite his claims that the economy is doing well.
• Even the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC), the government bureaucracy that administers the program, admits that is rife with “waste, fraud and abuse.
• A cellular phone carrier, SafeLink, offers government paid for plans that not only include basics like local, long distance, and emergency calls, but other amenities such as international calls, 1,000 texts, carry-over minutes, call waiting, roaming, and a choice of 67, 125, or 250 minutes—all at no cost and contract-free. 
• If 250 monthly minutes are not enough to call potential employers, no problem! Referring a friend for a free cell phone will score an additional 100 minutes.
• A comparable paid plan available at SafeLink’s parent company, TracFone Wireless, would cost almost $400 annually per phone for a perons using his or her own money to get cellular service.
• Although the Obama Phone program is theoretically restricted to one phone per household and only available to those who have an income below 135 percent of the federal poverty line or enrolled in a means-tested entitlement program, in reality, it is simple to obtain multiple Obama Phones. 
• The FCC announced that duplicate Lifeline subscriptions topped a whopping 2 million, warranting millions in fines to companies for failing to verify recipients’ income.
• Jillian Melchoir of the Franklin Center was able to collect three of her very own Obama Phones, even though her income disqualifies her from any government support.
• According to figures supplied by the FCC to The Wall Street Journal, 41 percent of subscribers were unable to prove their eligibility for the program.
• In an undercover investigation by conservative activist James O’Keefe, prospective recipients openly discussed selling their phones for handbags and heroin—only to be reassured by the Obama Phone vendors they would not be turned in or terminated.

Keep this taxpayer abuse in mind as you try to afford a cell phone purchase this holiday season, knowing that millions of other Americans are getting their phones and minutes for nothing. Just another reason why no American, rich or poor, should pay an additional penny in taxes until the Washington politicians class cuts out ALL wasteful spending and fraud.

2) We have often talked about how our “war on drugs” has being going on for about four decades and for about four decades it is has been a disaster. We imprison people for casual drug use, increasing our prison costs without providing any substantial addiction treatment, we distract law enforcement resources away from violent criminals to pursue nonviolent casual drug users, we trample on Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens, and our drug policies have led to the creation of violent drug cartels around the world, especially in Mexico.

We have often talked about how the Mexican drug cartels are ripping apart civilized living in Mexico. Their vast drug wealth corrupts police and public officials, they attack and kill journalists who dare to report on their violent activities, they buy legitimate Mexican businesses to cover their illegal activities and violently attack anyone one who might get in their way.

But a recent Associated Press article illustrated how large and dominant the drug cartels have become. Their November 29, 2013 article talked about how Mexican government officials verified that the drug cartels have entered the Mexico’s lucrative mining industry, exporting iron ore to Chinese mills.

Say what? The cartels are cutting international trade deals with foreign governments? Insane. Additionally, they control the mines, the transportation, the docks and the shipping to send the ore to China. It has gotten so bad that the military had to take over Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico's second-largest port, in order to cut off the cartels' export trade.

And to protect their new revenue source, the cartels are up to their violent ways, according to an example from the article:

• Three Michoacan state detectives were wounded in an ambush when they were traveling to investigate a mine taken over by criminals. When reinforcements arrived, those officers were also ambushed, part of a string of attacks on police in Michoacan on Wednesday and Thursday that left two officers dead and about a dozen wounded.
• The article goes on to compare the cartels to standard Mafia operations in the way they take over legitimate companies and operations via violence and threats. And it has been our ineffective, lame brained war on drugs that has led to the creation of these monster, violent gangs. 
• It is a 40 year war that the political class seems to have no desire to fix, reminding one of an old Einstein quote: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

Definition of insanity, perfectly fits our current set of politicians.

3) A few days ago in a previous insanity post, we pointed out the fact that the U.S. Treasury was going to sell of its remaining stock stake in General Motors by the end of the year. It is expected that this will result in the GM bailout costing the American taxpayer about $10 billion. This comes out to about $93 for every American household.

This $10 billion shortfall is going to occur even though the company has about $26 billion sitting around in cash reserves. First insult to the American taxpayer. However, there is an additional insult that was discussed in an October, 17, 2013 Washington Examiner article:

• In exchange for the bailout in 2009, GM promised to meet certain domestic car production targets over the next four years. 
• This condition was to ensure that GM jobs remained here in the U.S. and weren't shipped overseas. 
• The production targets started at 1.8 million domestic manufactured cars in 2010 and were supposed to rise to 2.26 million by 2014. 
• However, GM repeatedly missed the targets, beginning with an 81,000-unit shortfall the first year. 
• Although sales improved after the first year, the company never met the agreed to bailout targets. 
• In 2012, GM fell about 13,000 cars short of its 2 million target.
• We may never know how the company is doing this year since in February, GM announced in its annual report to shareholders that the U.S. Treasury had agreed to “irrevocably waive certain of its rights” including “certain manufacturing volume requirements.”
• In other words, the Obama administration let GM off the hook with its bailout conditions, a conclusion that was verified in June when GM announced it would no longer report its domestic sales, all worldwide sales would be lumped together for total company sales. 
• Coincidently in June, GM announced it would boost its output from its China plants by 70%, using some of that increased production not only for the Chinese market but also for export out of China. 

So let’s review. The Washington political class justifies giving a private company tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to bailout itself out of its bad management decisions. The government says this will save Detroit and create jobs in America. However, the bailout money is never repaid to the American taxpayer, leaving the country with a $10 billion unpaid debt even though the debtor company, General Motors, is sitting on about $26 billion in cash.

Not only do the domestic jobs not materialize as promised to any great degree, the Washington political class forgives the lack of job creation, agreed to in exchange for $10 billion, by allowing the company to not fulfill its production goals required by the bailout agreement, instead sending investment overseas to China where it creates jobs. Pathetic con job on the American taxpayer, crony capitalism ay its worse.

Oh, by the way, the court gave Detroit permission this past week to go bankrupt.

4) On last piece of insanity for this month, a quick review of how horribly the current set of politicians in Washington have handled our economic affairs over the past few years, courtesy of an analysis by Forbes magazine back in August, 2013:

• Since the Great Depression, there have been 11 other recessions in this country prior to the Great Recession of 2008.
• In all eleven of recessions, the economy recovered all of the domestic jobs lost during the recession an average of 25 months after the recession began.
• However, today, 5½ years, or 67 months, after the Great Recession started, we still have not recovered all of the jobs lost during the recession
• In 2008, the Federal government reported that total nonfarm seasonally adjusted employment was 138 million workers. 
• As of mid-2013, there are currently fewer than 136 million workers.
• Additionally, the number of Americans has grown by 12.8 million over the past five years. 
• In some parts of the country, more than one in five adults who want full time employment can’t find it.
• As a comparison, Reagan’s recovery from the sharp 1981-1982 recession recovered all of the jobs lost during that recession within 36 months. 
• At this point in the Reagan recovery, jobs had grown nearly 10% higher than when the recession started, representing an increase of more than 10 million more jobs.
• In the 11 post depression recessions before President Obama, the economy recovered the lost GDP during the recession within an average of 4.5 quarters after the recession started. But it took Obama’s recovery 16 quarters, or 4 years, to reach that point. 
• Today, 5½ years, after the Great Recession started, the economy (real GDP) has grown only about 3% above where it was when the recession started.
• At this point in the Reagan recovery, the economy had boomed by about 20%, or one fifth.
• As we have reported many times in this blog, middle class household incomes have continued to fall during Obama’s recovery, losing even more ground than during the recession. 
• The number of Americans living in poverty has also continued to soar during Obama’s recovery, to about 50 million, the most in the more than 50 years that Census has been tracking poverty.
• Despite spending trillions and trillions of dollars on the “war on poverty” since the mid 1960s, the U.S. poverty rate is 16.1%, higher than when the War on Poverty started in 1965. 

The Forbes article does not include the fact that government food assistance, “food stamps,” is now serving 50% more Americans than it did just five years ago. This horrible economic report card of the current political class still occurred even though they spent a record amount of over $800 billion on an economic stimulus plan that failed horribly, they are enjoying a domestic energy industry rebirth, and the Fed has pumped trillions of dollars of fake/printed money in to the economy.

Never has one set of politicians had so much help in pumping up the economy for such a long time with such high stimulus spending and still we are stuck with the pathetic results outlined by the Forbes analysis.

That’s enough insanity for this month. After reviewing the wasteful spending on Obama Phones, the crony capitalism of General Motors and the Obama administration, the creation and empowering of violent drug cartels, and the inept handling of the nation’s economy, I do not think we can stand much more “leadership” from the lunatics in Washington. More insanity next month, same time, same idiocy from the same, tired set of useless politicians.

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

November, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 4: Obama Phone Fraud, Alternative Energy Fraud, Outhouse Fraud, and More

This is our fourth post this month in our continuing series on political class insanity. Our first post this month can be viewed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/11/november-2013-poliical-class-insanity.html

Wasteful spending, delusional and unreal views of the world, failing government programs and departments, the list seems endless, especially for the trillions and trillions of dollars taxpayers entrust to the political class every year for very little in return. And the insanity we are talking about does not even touch on the biggest insanity of the year, the unfolding disaster that is Obama care.

1) A recent poll by Pew Research indicates that the public’s trust of the Federal government continues to be very low and trending lower:

• Only 19% of those Americans surveyed recently by Pew say that they trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always or most of the time.
• This low rating is down a whopping down seven points since January. 
• The current measure matches the level reached in August 2011, following the last battle over the debt ceiling. 
• The share of the public saying they are angry at the federal government, which equaled an all-time high in late September (26%), has ticked up to 30%. 
• Another 55% say they are frustrated with the government. 
• Just 12% say they are basically content with the federal government.

A pathetic showing for the Washington political class but a low showing that is certainly justified just based on the nonsense we report in this blog. This evidence alone is a reason for term limits because as the citizenry gather less and less faith and trust in the ability of the government to do the right thing, the ability of the government to do the right thing goes down also. And there is no one in the political spectrum that seems to know how to fix the paranoia.

2) The following insanity is a real doozy. It was documented by Americans for Limited government and their website post came with an extensive set of sources to prove that they were not making this wasteful spending up because without those sources, you would naturally think this spending escapade had to be a joke.

This waste involves the construction of a public restroom facility at the Manassas National Park in Virginia, the sight of Civil War battles:

• The Federal government has spent over $578,000 to erect a “comfort station,” I.e. restroom, at the Manassas National Park.
• Yes, $578,00, for a bathroom… in a park.
• For that amount of money, one would have expected an extensive and comfortable rest room facility with lots of bells and whistles.
• You could expect that but you would be wrong, as this picture of the meager restroom illustrates your disappointment (click on the photo for a larger view):

• Not only is it meager and small, it was modular, constructed elsewhere and snapped together on site, certainly less stable than if it had actually been constructed from the ground up on site.
• By the way, that stone siding is fake stone.
• The post wonders how far would $578,000 get you toward buying other toilet-rendering facilities in Manassas, VA. The resultant research finds that for $575,0000 you could purchase a large modern house, complete with 4 full bathroom installations, right down the street from the park in Manassas.
• In traditional and incompetent government fashion, the Federal government paid for a 449-page report on the proposed park restrooms.
• That effort included an additional 90-page “Environmental Assessment for a Comfort Station at the Brawner Farm.”
• While the expenditure of over half a million dollars on a prefabricated rest room building is obnoxious and pathetic in itself, the original proposal called for the restroom building to be installed in time to  accommodate the 150th anniversary of the Second Battle of Bull Run to be celebrated in August 2012. 
• However, the restrooms were not opened to the public until September of 2013, missing its installation date by a mere 13 months. 

Unnecessarily expensive and too late to serve its intended purpose, sounds about right for a Federal government program. And Harry Reid says every American wants to spend more in taxes to the Federal government. Delusional, especially in light of half a million dollars for a common restroom prefab building. 

3) Remember how Obama was going to shut down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo right after he got elected since it was an embarrassment and terrorist recruiting tool? Well, five years after he was elected this is another campaign promise that went unfulfilled. And according to a Washington Examiner article from November 1, 2013, the continued use of that prison costs the American taxpayer almost half a billion dollars, $481 million, just to watch over the remaining 160 prisoners. This comes out to a whopping $3 million a year per prisoner. Unbelievable.

How many more teachers, drug counselors, meals for the homeless, etc. could have been bought for $481 million a year if Obama had actually kept a promise for once?

4) Many times we have reviewed the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars Obama gave out to mostly political allies and cronies in the alternative energy businesses, none of which returned any benefit back to society. Solyndra, Fisker, A123, Abound, Ecotality, Evergreen, Spectra, and many others served only as a sewer drain for taxpayer wealth

Well to add two insults to injury, one of those failure may still cost the American taxpayer a lot of money even though they have gone out of business. Two years after Abound Solar got a large loan guarantee from the American taxpayer via the Federal government, it had to lay off its hundreds of workers and went into bankruptcy proceedings.

The eventual financial damage to the taxpayer was a total of $70 million for backing the failed company. Unsold inventory from the company operations, which should have been used to offset those taxpayer losses, including 2,000 solar panels, mysteriously disappeared, according to the National Legal Policy Center. Thus, even after the company died, its bones could not be picked to help pay back the taxpayers.

Second insult to injury: the company left behind, at its  Longmont, Colo. Facility, 37,000 square feet that is covered with hazardous waste such as cancer causing cadmium, broken glass and contaminated water. The Northern Colorado Business Report  estimated it will cost up to $3.7 million to clean and repair the building so it can again be used. Want to bet the American taxpayer somehow gets stuck with that clean up bill also?

All because this administration thought it was fine to reward political backers with hard earned taxpayer wealth. Despicable.

5) Another day, another Federal agency that is overrun with waste and criminal fraud:

• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released findings where they admit that many people who have received  Obama Phones have misused or defrauded the program. 
• The numbers that the FCC admitted to are staggering: more than two million recipients are believed to have improperly received a phone under the Lifeline program.
• As a measure of government incompetence, this estimate is almost twice as many as the FCC estimated just last month! Who knows how much more fraud they will admit to next month?
• In the years between Obama’s first term and second term elections, spending within the program nearly tripled from $819 million to $2.2 billion.
• While the FCC has implemented a few fraud-fighting tactics, the resultant fines of more than $32 million against mobile providers who knowingly violated the program’s rules is less than 1,5% of the program’s overall cost and certainly not close to the fraud incurred by the two million fraudulent users of the program.
• $32 million recovered via fines against two million fraudulent phones comes out to only $6 dollars per fraudulent phone identified.
• More than 40% of those receiving such Obama Phone assistance were unable or unwilling to provide documentation supporting their eligibility, according to an investigation into the largest facilitators of Obama phones. 40% of the total just strolled into the program without any proof of need and walked out with free cellular phones and free cellular service. Disgusting, and just another reason why no American, rich or poor, should pay another penny in taxes while this type of fraud and ineptness exists in Washington.

Expensive phones, expensive outhouses, expensive crony infested alternative energy companies, all failures. And the insanity is not done, more to follow tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

May, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 3: Fixing Unemployment In Serbia, Obama Phone Fraud, The Collapse of Detroit, and More

This is the third in a series of posts covering the latest political class insanity. In the previous two posts we have reviewed such lunacy as the U.S. defense budget which is now over a whopping $700 billion a year, the fact that the Federal government hands out over $115 billion a year in contracts that have no competitive bidding involved, the monstrosity that is Dodd-Frank, and other lunacy, which continues today.

1) A Wall Street Journal article that was summarized in the March 22, 2013 issue of The Week magazine reported that Americans are less active than ever. A new Federal government study estimated that Americans’ sedentary time outside of work has increased by about 40% between 1965 and 2009. On average, Americans take 5,117 steps a day, about half than the 10,000 steps recommended by the American Heart Association.

No matter how much health insurance is provided to Americans under Obama Care, unless you can get Americans up and walking and active, you will not eliminate one of the main root causes of skyrocketing health care costs in this country. Rather than setting up massive government bureaucracies that will never work and strangling the economy with taxes and regulations, the far better, simpler, and more effective approach to high health care costs is a public relations and public health drive to get people moving.

However, better, simpler, and effective are three adjectives rarely associated with the American political class.

2) Another Federal welfare program that has gotten out of control and is riddled with waste is the so-called “Obama Phone” program:

• The original program was started way back in the Reagan administration and provided minimal landline phone service to poor rural Americans so that they could make a call during an emergency.
• Back then, the annual cost of the program was about $146 million dollars.
• In 2008, cell phones were added to this so-called Lifeline program and the usage ballooned.
• The program, which is supposed to be only for people on food stamps and welfare, costs the American taxpayer $2.2 billion a year.
• This makes it 15 times more expensive than when it was truly for emergency use only.
• The fraud and inefficiency of the program has gotten so out of hand that even Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill was offered a free phone under the program: “I got solicitation for a free phone at my apartment, which is certainly not a building where you’re going to have people who are qualified for free phones. … There is clearly money being wasted here.” You think, Senator?
• The waste the Senator so eloquently believes to exist is staggering.
• The FCC says there are more than 270,000 people who have more than one welfare phone, which is not allowed in the program.
• The top five companies that provide phones under the program readily admit that 41% of the people who have the phones may not be eligible for the program but still get them anyway.
• Arkansas Republican Congressman Tim Griffin recently asserted: “I hear from law enforcement that these phones are often found at crime scenes and are used in drug deals. Why? It’s because you can’t trace them.”

Great program. Almost half of the participants are getting the phones illegally and fraudulently. They are being used for criminal activities, courtesy of the American taxpayer. And those that are actually entitled to a free phone may actually be abusing the privilege by asking for AND obtaining more than one free phone.

If you could get just the 41% fraud under control, you could save the American taxpayer about $900 million a year. Those savings could operate the discontinued White House tours for over 900 years or give each American household about $7.50, enough for a movie ticket or a few gallons of gas, certainly more worthwhile uses than supporting crime and fraud.

3) Detroit used to be one of the largest, most vibrant, and wealthiest cities in America. However, decades of political corruption, fraud, incompetence, and political criminal activity have resulted in the following Detroit condition:

1. Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, and it was once home to close to 2 million people. However, according to the 2010 census, only 713,000 people now live in Detroit.
2. The population of Detroit has declined by about 25 percent over the past decade. The last time the population of Detroit was this low was back in 1910.
3. Back in 1960, the city of Detroit had the highest per-capita income in the United States.
4. Today, the unemployment rate in Detroit is more than 18%, which is more than twice as high as the nation as a whole.
5. According to a report that was just recently released, approximately 60% of all children in Detroit live in poverty.
6. Approximately one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles are either vacant or derelict.
7. The city government of Detroit has closed dozens of schools and has decided to cut off public services to the heavily blighted areas.
8. According to one estimate, there are 33,500 empty houses and 91,000 vacant residential lots in the city of Detroit today.
9. The median price of a home in Detroit is just $9,000, and there are some areas of Detroit where you can still buy a house for $100.
10. The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.
11. Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

Note: the original sources of this data can be accessed at:

http://www.isthatbaloney.com/11-shocking-facts-about-detroit-that-dont-fit-obamas-so-called-economic-recovery/

You have to work hard to be so incompetent. It is hard to fathom that a city’s politicians could be so crooked and so inept to allow a city of this magnitude to fall so far. It reinforces the fact that just because someone is in a political position, national, state, or local, does not mean that they are honest, bright, and hard working. Detroit is the personification of this.

4) Everyone knows that it has been a rough five years for the U.S. economy. Persistently high unemployment with over 23 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. Worse employment conditions for minorities and younger Americans. Record high food stamp enrollment.

Thus, one could consider the recent announcement that the Federal government was looking to grant upwards of $300,000 for an effort for “workforce development.” Although small in budget terms, anything to get Americans working might be considered a good idea.

Oops, the $300,000 was not for unemployed Americans, it was to be used to help Serbia get its unemployment rate down. Yes, Serbia. How many Americans do you think could pick out Serbia on a map? Talk about bad priorities.

The Federal government’s International Development (USAID) organization recently announced that it will award up to $300,000 for “workforce development” in the Republic of Serbia:

“Currently, there is a mismatch between private sector needs and the capacity of the existing workforce, which continues to contribute to the high unemployment rate, especially among youth.
Therefore, USAID/Serbia has identified workforce development as a means to address the broader problem of unemployment,”

Serbia??? Consider the unemployment and other economic conditions currently in place in this country as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in early April:

• The unemployment rate is about 7.6% in America, in itself very bad but much less than the combined unemployment rate and underemployment rate.
• 9.46 million Americans have dropped out of the workforce since Obama was first inaugurated in January 2009.
• The unemployment rate for African Americans in America is 13.3%.
• The unemployment rate for Latinos the rate is 9.2%.

I am sure that Serbia has some significant problems but we do also. Wasting even the relatively small sum of $300,000 is money well wasted on a Serbian problem, given our own dire economic workforce problems.

Serbia??? More political class 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.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w